Luck Be a Devil
by Adara-chan67
Summary: Companion piece to "Luck Be a Lady." Sam may have been psychic once, but he never could have predicted this. Rating just to be safe.


_Disclaimer: This time, I do own the title. And nothing else._

_Characters: Dean and Sam Winchester, mentions of Castiel_

_Setting: Post-"The Man Who Knew Too Much" and sequel to _Luck Be a Lady

_Warnings: Heavy spoilers for "TMWKTM." Also some mentions of torture, but nothing terribly graphic because I can't write torture scenes at all. And also, this is…very strange, jumbled together, and confused. It's supposed to be._

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><p><span>Luck Be a Devil<span>

Sam stumbled up to the building, his mind a whirlwind he fought to control with every step. Images of fire that he didn't dare examine mixed with a strange emptiness that somehow terrified him even more, and underneath it all was the desire to get to Dean as quickly as possible.

Dean would make it better.

_Fire…fire enveloping him…consuming him…consuming everything that he was._

Sam stopped and put his hand to his head as, for a moment, the images he'd been trying to suppress overwhelmed him.

But it was only for a moment. Then that feeling of emptiness throttled the feeling of being burned.

**Stop whining. They're only pictures. They're not hurting you.**

Sam pushed it all back and forced his mission—_get to Dean_—back to the forefront of his mind and continued forward, finally gaining the door.

The fact that his mind was trying to go in at least three different directions at once made it difficult to immediately understand what he was seeing from the doorway. Dean, Bobby, and Cas were all there, all apparently safe and unhurt. Crowley was there, too, and so was a black woman that Sam decided must be Raphael.

And that was wrong, because Raphael and Crowley were _dangerous_, and come to think of it, so was Cas, and why was Dean standing so calmly in the same room with all of them?

_Cold…bone-crushing cold to replace the heat of the flames…ice surrounding him, ice inside him._

Once again reality was crushed by the pictures his mind kept trying to force on him, and once again that emptiness overtook it.

**Pictures, Sam. Stop wallowing. There's work to be done.**

By the time Sam managed to regain control of himself both Crowley and Raphael had disappeared and Dean looked…well, Dean looked frankly terrified.

"…I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam. Don't make me lose you, too."

_And now I've lost Sam._

_Really? I'm lost?_ Sam thought, puzzled. _Then how come I'm here?_

**Pay attention, Sam. Think!**

Compelled by the voice, Sam took another few steps forward.

That was when he noticed the sword on the floor.

And that was when all the things that had been vying for dominance in Sam's brain collided for one brief, awful moment.

_Fire and ice and two faces, equally beautiful and equally horrible, and pain beyond description._

**Crushing emptiness able to ignore the pain, to rise above everything, but without anything to check its cold ruthlessness.**

And between them, Sam, who wanted nothing more than to forget again.

A flash of a large hand wrapping around the hilt of the sword, the feeling of cold steel against warm skin.

And then everything was gone, save blackness.

XXX

_In the distance an urgent voice spoke, but he couldn't focus enough to really hear it, let alone understand the words. He was too focused on the memories that consumed him._

_He could see it, hear it, _feel_ it like it was happening right then. He could see Michael and Lucifer, united for the first time in thousands of years, focused entirely on…him, with nothing to do other than take their frustration and their own pain out on him. _

_And because of that, _his_ pain never ceased, not for a moment. He could feel it now, feel his skin opening under the blades, feel that same skin crack and peel in the flames and then begin to die and rot in the ice._

_He never did figure out how they got their instruments, how they managed to make the fire surround him without touching them, how they turned the fire into ice. He never knew how they could cut him into pieces with him remaining fully awake and aware that it was happening, or how his body mended itself over incredibly painful days, weeks, _months_ so that they could start all over again._

_He only ever really knew one thing: Lucifer and Michael had all the time in the world._

_He was never going home again._

_This pain would go on and on forever._

_So that was three things, really._

_The voice was still rumbling in the distance, broken by a small _thump_ that he knew he should recognize, just as he should recognize the voice._

_Only…he didn't. He didn't know the voice or the sound or…anything really._

_Except that Lucifer and Michael had all the time in the world._

_He was never going home again._

_This pain would go on and on forever._

_That list echoed in his mind, over and over and over._

_Eventually it even drowned out the voice._

XXX

**It was a long struggle, but he finally forced down the part of himself that insisted on wallowing in the memories and the paralysis they brought with them. Clearing his throat to get rid of the lump that had formed there, he looked around to take stock.**

**His brother was sitting in the driver's seat, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, scowling at the road as if it had done something unforgivable. For once there was no music on the radio, so the silence was complete until Sam broke it.**

"**Haven't we gotten to a motel yet?"**

**The next thing he knew he was jerking forward, slamming against the dashboard as the car jerked to a stop on the side of the road.**

**"Dude, skid much? What the hell was that?" he snapped, rubbing his elbow. As he did he noticed the gun in his hand and tossed it into the backseat without a second glance.**

**"What was…skid…you…and…you were…" Dean babbled, staring at him like he'd grown another head. "Are you okay?" came the next, more coherent question.**

**He shrugged. "Uh…yeah, sure. Fine. Why?" **

**Dean made an almost offended sound. "**_**Why?**_** Sam, you…you were…we've been on the road for like three hours, and you've been Schizo Sam the whole time! Excuse me if I'm a little confused here."**

**He looked at the clock and realized that yes, they had in fact been on the road for three hours, and he must have been staring into the distance like a lunatic the entire time.**

**He noticed absently that his hair was doing that stupid thing where it fell into his eyes again—he'd really have to do something about that. "Oh, that," he said, brushing the offending locks away. "That was just…it was nothing." Best not to say what had really been going on—Dean would just get bogged down in details and freak out and dealing with that would be…tedious.**

**"Nothing. Sure," Dean said skeptically, doing that **_**thing**_** with his eyes, that thing that seemed so much like an X-ray.**

**He fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Really, man. I'm good. Great, even."**

**"But….Sam, this isn't right. You were unconscious for almost a day, Cas took that damn wall down…you can't seriously tell me everything's just peachy."**

**"But it is. Did you want it not to be?" he asked, impatient to end the conversation so he could concentrate on keeping control of his mind. When Dean only stared at him, he gave into the urge for an eye roll and said "Look, we can talk about this later. Can we get a room somewhere? I'm beat."**

**Dean didn't say a word, but that was all right.**

**Silence was golden, after all.**

**He was forced to put up with more inane conversation once they reached a motel, but he managed to diffuse it for the most part by going into the bathroom and speaking in monosyllables when he came back out.**

**Most of his focus was on, not on conversation, but on fighting everything that had been trying to well up in him. Memories of the cage warred with fear and…grief?**

_**Cas...**_

_**We lost Cas.**_

**He shook his head to rid himself of the thought and everything that went with it and lay back against the pillows. Sleep…that was what he needed. **

**Sleep would shut his mind down.**

**Sleep would shut his mind **_**up.**_

**Sleep would make them leave him alone.**

XXX

_The cage was dark._

_It was funny…he was pretty sure no one ever thought of Hell as dark. Most people tended to focus on the flames instead of…all the other things the pit had to offer._

_But mostly, yeah, the cage was dark. Lucifer and Michael apparently preferred it that way, and objectively it was easy to see why. Everyone knows blindness heightens the other senses, including the sense of touch, which, of course, includes pain. So it was obvious why the archangel and the devil would prefer to keep their victims in utter darkness._

_But even that didn't explain the amount of pain he felt. He'd been cut before, sliced to ribbons, even. He'd been burned badly when he was ten and nearly frozen to death in a blizzard once. And none of it it had _ever_ felt like it did in the cage. _

_He remembered that it had taken him a long time to start screaming, a long time for his foolish pride to be overcome by a longing for the pain to just _stop_, no matter the cost. But Lucifer and Michael were patient, and eventually they'd succeeded in teasing out that first soft scream._

_And after that, he hadn't stopped._

_Not once._

_He was screaming now, too, much louder than whoever was talking to him, shaking him, trying to pull him back._

_He wasn't sure he _could_ come back._

_Wasn't sure he could ever stop screaming, now that he'd started again._

XXX

Sam came back to himself, and opened his eyes.

He felt…stiff, sore, as if he'd been immobile for a very long time.

He was afraid to find out why.

He was scared to open his eyes.

He was frightened to his very core, and he had no idea why.

But he'd learned at a young age that you couldn't hide from your problems. Whatever was going on, wherever he was, he'd just have to face up to it.

He opened his eyes, his gaze darting frantically around the room.

"Dean?"

The word slipped from him without permission the moment he laid eyes on his brother, and he barely recognized that shaky whisper as his own. Dean, though, reacted as if Sam had shot him rather than just whispered his name. His head jerked up, his eyes met Sam's, and for a minute the two of them stared at each other.

Sam's mind was moving very slowly, as if encased in molasses, so Dean's arms were around him before he'd even realized his big brother was moving. The hug was tight, loving, and…incredibly awkward, actually. But a hug was a hug—there was etiquette just like everything else—and so after a moment, once his brain caught up, he hugged Dean back.

"Are you all right?" Dean asked, pulling back.

Sam wasn't really sure how to reply. He was sore…very, very sore…and he still had no idea what the hell was going on. On the other hand, Dean _was_ there, and they were both evidently alive. "Uh…I think so. Dean, what happened? Where are we? Where's Cas? And why are you looking at me like that?"

The look Dean was giving him was…disconcerting. It made him feel like he'd missed quite a bit more than he'd thought. It almost felt as if he was one of those people who wake up after years in a coma and don't figure it out until some old decrepit guy comes into visit and says he's their brother or friend or boyfriend or whatever.

Only Dean wasn't old, so clearly he hadn't been gone for years.

But maybe months?

"You mean you don't remember last night?"

Oh. Okay. That answered that, then.

"What's the last thing you do remember?" Dean asked, oddly hesitant.

Sam wracked his brains, trying to come up with something other than blackness, and eventually his memory obliged…somewhat. "Uh…well, we were with Cas and Bobby, and Crowley was there, and…Raphael? I think Raphael was with Crowley, or Crowley was with Raphael, one or the other. And then it was just Crowley or…something like that." Or were both Crowley and Raphael gone? "And Cas was saying…just…crazy things, and the sword was on the ground, and…I think I grabbed it? Maybe?" Once again that flash of a hand—his own—wrapping around the hilt of the blade, just before everything went black. "And then…nothing."

He felt like he hadn't done a very good job of explaining, and by the time he finished Dean was looking even more concerned about him than he had before. But all he said was, "Come on, let's get you off the floor, okay?"

Sam allowed himself to be pulled up, wincing and rubbing his neck. "Jeez, that's sore. Why do I feel so freaking stiff?"

Dean smirked, though it was a pale shadow of what he would normally muster. "Probably because you've been curled in a little Sammy-ball in the corner all night."

Figuring he might as well return the favor and make some shot at normalcy, Sam did his best to pull off a glare. "That name isn't any funnier now than it was when I was a twelve, Dean. But seriously," he added as he collapsed on his bed, "you have got to fill in some blanks for me."

By the time Dean finished, he very much wished he hadn't made that request.

It was bad enough that they'd apparently lost Cas—for good this time—and that sometime very, very soon they could expect a less than enjoyable visit with the angel-turned-demigod. Or God, apparently, depending on who you asked.

But then Dean told him the rest of what had happened the night before—the part where he'd apparently turned catatonic and then merely emotionless and then insane—and while he was talking Sam's mind went from syrup-slow to full speed.

And he didn't like the conclusions he was drawing.

He remembered all too clearly what had happened after Cas had taken the wall down. He remembered coming face-to-face with—and then killing—himself…twice. He remembered what had happened after those other Sams had died, how he'd…_absorbed_ them. He'd thought it was just a dream…a metaphor.

But maybe it hadn't been.

Maybe it had been all too real.

Maybe the reason it sounded like he had multiple personalities was because _he did._

Sam groaned inwardly as he envisioned trying to explain this to Dean, knowing exactly what his brother would say.

_We are so screwed. _

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><p><em>Author's Note: So…this was much harder to write than I thought it would be. I have never, ever tried to write anything like this. So feedback is crucial here, guys. Help me out here? Please? <em>

_Also, I will be doing a sequel in which Sam and Dean deal with this whole split personality thing, which hopefully should be a little more normal in terms of style and therefore not quite so difficult to write._

_Remember, reviews are fun for all! _


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